The Spenglers (Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, and Mckenna Grace), the latest generation of Ghostbusters, try to dodge the vindictive Mayor (William Atherton) and keep the business afloat. Meanwhile, legacy Ghostbuster Ray (Dan Aykroyd) discovers a brass ball containing an ancient evil. Naturally, the thing cracks open, the ghost escapes, and it sets out to freeze New York and eventually the world.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire does a slightly better job at balancing the fan service nostalgia of the ‘84 original with the Spengler family plotline than Afterlife did. Paul Rudd is once again the MVP of the movie, as his “Aw, shucks” demeanor and fanboy geek-outs offer up plenty of laughs. Grace is also engaging, as her friendship with a (seemingly) harmless ghost girl (Emily Alyn Lind) presents an interesting wrinkle to the Ghostbuster canon. Wolfhard gets noticeably less to do this time around as most of his screen time is spent trying to wrangle Slimer.
Of the OG cast, Aykroyd has the most screentime and gets a satisfying character arc. While he doesn’t have any big laughs, it’s still a lot of fun hearing him rattle off a lot of pseudoscientific gobbledygook. Ernie Hudson is around for a bit too, although like in the other movies, he’s just sort of there. Bill Murray is conspicuously absent for the most part, but he does at least deliver some laughs during his brief onscreen moments. Although I certainly wish he was in it more, I’m still glad they were able to convince him to strap on a proton pack once again.
As for the ghostbusting scenes, they’re mostly entertaining. The stuff with Slimer is cute and the scenes with the mini-marshmallow men are once again amusing. Surprisingly, the most fun comes from the “possessor” ghost who inhabits everyday objects (from a bag of trash to a pizza).
Of course, none of this is a patch on the original, but I liked it just as much as (if not more than) Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
No comments:
Post a Comment